United Air Lines Flight 409
A United Air Lines Douglas DC-4, similar to the aircraft involved in the accident | |
| Accident | |
|---|---|
| Date | October 6, 1955 |
| Summary | Controlled flight into terrain |
| Site | Medicine Bow Peak, Carbon County, near Centennial, Wyoming, United States 41°20′42″N 106°19′45″W / 41.34504°N 106.32906°W |
| Aircraft | |
| Aircraft type | Douglas DC-4 |
| Operator | United Air Lines |
| Call sign | UNITED 409 |
| Registration | N30062 |
| Flight origin | New York City, New York |
| 1st stopover | Chicago, Illinois |
| 2nd stopover | Stapleton International Airport, Denver, Colorado, United States |
| Last stopover | Salt Lake City International Airport, Salt Lake City, Utah, United States |
| Destination | San Francisco, California |
| Occupants | 66 |
| Passengers | 63 |
| Crew | 3 |
| Fatalities | 66 |
| Survivors | 0 |
United Air Lines Flight 409 was a scheduled flight which originated in New York City, New York. The final flight destination was San Francisco, California, with stops in Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City. The aircraft operating the service, a Douglas DC-4 propliner, registered as N30062, crashed into Medicine Bow Peak, near Laramie, Wyoming, on October 6, 1955, killing all 66 people on board (63 passengers, 3 crew members). The victims included five female members of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and military personnel. At the time, this was the deadliest airline crash in the history of American commercial aviation. Another 66 lives had been lost earlier that year in the March 22 crash in Hawaii of a United States Navy Douglas R6D-1 Liftmaster military transport aircraft, and 66 had also died in the mid-air collision of two United States Air Force C-119G Flying Boxcars over West Germany (1955 Altensteig mid-air collision) on August 11, placing the three crashes in a three-way tie as the deadliest aviation incidents in 1955.